Mother Road
Copyright
2006 L.Anguss Smith
May be used for non-profit ministry purposes
There is a long asphalt thread that runs through Needles,
Connecting Chicago with L.A.
Everything fro Freightliners to VW Beatles
Have passed along its blacktopped way
My father followed it west, back in ’27,
To Southern California’s fair land
Where some folks supposed it was nearly heaven,
But, he went just to be a hired hand.
In ’43 my mother rode the Mother Road
To the same locality.
In ’45 they agreed to share life’s load,
Just a year latter …came baby me
Eighteen years pass. Its time for me to leave the nest,
So, eastward I went to OKC,
To enhance my higher educational quest,
Via Route 66...naturally.
‘Twas on this well-worn highway, I had my first date,
With the schoolgirl that I would marry.
Along its path we eloped to my home state,
For we both felt we could not tarry .
During the forty years since our honeymooning nights,
We’ve often traveled Old Double Six route
Stopping at the many roadside sights
To explore the wonders that they tout.
Some places, like Arizona’s Meterior Crater,
Have proven very worthy of our time,
While with other’s, it’s best to say, see you later,
They’re just tour traps: well past their prime.
She has places beautiful vistas and natural wonders,
Like Painted Dessert and Grand Canyon
And native ruins, damaged by careless blunders
Of those that plundered with abandon.
She rolls over steep mountains and across the Great Plains,
Crossing arroyos and great rivers,
While lacing farm towns and cities with her lanes
So we gain from what she delivers.
She’s been known by various names from place to place
Now, mostly by Interstate numbers,
But in areas one can still see her old face,
As over the hills she lumbers.
She’s played quite a roll for nearly sixty years
Of my temporal , earthly, existence.
I see her daily and think of her pioneers
That have aided my very subsistence.
However, there’s a far more important road, it is not wide
And broad like the new Interstates.
It’s the road my parents took to the other side,
And it leads to heaven’s gates
There are many beautiful experiences,
Along this spiritual highway,
But, also diversions whose consequences
Are reaped on some sleazy byway.
So I’ll stay on the old path, Its God’s scarlet thread,
Of our redemption from long ago.
“I am the way, the truth and the life”, Christ has said,
All of the other roads lead below.
Proverbs 14: and Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)
“There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end, it leads to death.
Enter through the
narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road
that
leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the
gate
and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find
it.”
